Product Description

Amidst a backdrop of worldwide ecological and seismological chaos in the mid-2100s, the United States has been split in two by the "Great Flood." As a result of the polar ice cap melting, the Mississippi River has destroyed the central portion of the United States, causing an ill-equipped Federal Government to fail and literally cut the country in half. These two halves are left to fend for themselves in the aftermath.

The East, now known as the Atlantic Alliance, symbolic of their union with Europe, puts its faith in surviving this new world in cybernetics, an established yet evolving technology now more than 150 years old. On the other side of the flooded continent, the Western states, now called the Republic of Pacifica and having allied with Asia, resort to solving their problems at the genetic level, effectively restructuring the DNA of its inhabitants - a method the Atlantic Alliance finds morally reprehensible.

• Reshape the battlefield with terrain shattering weapons: Experience a dynamic battlefield that is unique every time you play. Use never-before-seen weapons to fracture, crater, freeze or elevate the earth.
• Experience a story of betrayal and revenge: Follow the journey of a patriotic Atlantic Alliance soldier when an act of treason launches him into the lethal battlefield of the 22nd century.
• Multiplayer play allows the terrain deforming battles to rage on: Choose the side of the genetically enhanced Pacificans or the cybernetically powerful Atlantic Alliance.
• Fight for the control of familiar locations and landmarks: The last Word Wars were fought in Europe, but the next great global war will be fought on American soil. Battle in famous locations across the United States.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2386 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: ACTIVISION
• Released on: 2008-10-10
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
New ideas often seem few and far between in shooters, but Facture goes out of its way to be different. Amongst all the usual guns, rocket launchers, and bombs your most basic weapon is the Entrencher, which is able to instantly create two foot deep craters in the ground or raise up the earth by the same amount.

The earth will move while playing this game

There’s no such thing as a level playing field in Fracture

Big guns and short haircuts abound

The enemies are cyborgs with their own unique set of weapons

Naturally this comes in handy for getting around the game world--helping you reach inaccessible areas or tunnel under fences--and as a means to create cover for yourself or to take it away from your enemies. You even can throw special grenades that can cause the same effects at a distance.

Key Features

• World at your command: Raise or lower the ground to shield yourself from enemies, dislodge barrels and boulders, or uncover underground secrets.
• Explosive power: Special grenades can replicate the effects of the Entrencher tool, creating an instant vertical shaft of rock, or summon a mini tornado to sweep up the enemy.
• Tech war: Climb aboard a range of different vehicles and gun emplacements, and fight back against your enemies and their own unique biological weapons.
• Land shark: Special weapons include the torpedo launcher, which tunnels under the ground ,or the ice gun which turns enemiesinto ice cubes.
• Online deconstruction: Pit your skills against human opponents in massive 12-player online matches, where everyone can morph the map to suit their needs.

About the Developer: Day 1 Studios
Founded in 2001, American developer Day 1 Studios’ first game was MechAssault--an early adopter of of Xbox Live online play. As well as working on the sequel, Day 1 also created the console versions of F.E.A.R. and all-new game Fracture for LucasArts.

Amazon.co.uk
Reshape the battlefield -- and the fate -- of a broken nation in Fracture. The new IP from LucasArts and Day 1 Studios is "groundbreaking" in more ways than one. As Jet Brody, a demolitions expert in Atlantic Alliance, you use explosives and terrain-deforming weaponry to change the face of battle between a divided America.

Amidst a backdrop of worldwide ecological and seismological chaos in the mid-2100s, the United States has been split in two by the "Great Flood". As a result of the polar ice cap melting, the Mississippi River has destroyed the central portion of the United States, causing an ill-equipped Federal Government to fail and literally cutting the country in half.

Set in the mid-2100s with a backdrop of worldwide ecological and seismological chaos, Fracture entertains a plausible future conflict. As stem cell research continues to proliferate and spiral out of control, ideological differences over genetic enhancement place the player at the threshold of an epic battle of genetics vs. cybernetics, as two powerful armies, with vastly differing tactics and advantages, square off. The battlefield will change forever.

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Customer Reviews

Simple Shooter
Overall, thi game is easy to play, doesnt take too long to complete and has a highly imaginative story line. Reading the reviews on here, some people expect all games to be as difficult and as detailed as Halo and Gears of War. Sometimes its nice to play a game where you dont have to spend hours and hours to complete.

Overall - Fracture is fun to play. Give it a go if you want to try a different type of shooter.

Nothing Special
I should be giving this game 4 or 5 stars, but as you can see I'm not. Like most other recently released games, FracTure is too basic. It is repetative and not worth £40.
I bought this game when I traded in others and I'll warn you now, FracTure tends to copy segments of other games like - Gears of War, Resistance: Fall of Man and Halo.
This may sound like the dream game but trust me it's not.
The game is far from terrible but far from great. I know I'm not alone in saying that there are too many average games that don't have enough unique or different features, and I am sick of it, okay you can raise and lower the ground, but this only works in certain area's and gets boring and needless after the first few levels.
The graphics arent bad but the character name couldn't get any worse: Jet Brody. This is strange and the music in the background makes you think you are playing star wars.
The story sucks too. America has been split into two different sections and you fight "Pacificans" from the other side, but whether they are supposed to be humans I just don't know.
Overall if you have Call of Duty 4 I'd stick to it, If you have Gears or Halo stick to it. This game is so average and brings not many new features to the world of gaming.

A confused vision of the future
Fracture has been one of those titles that has been in development a while, yet during this time managed to avoid the massive amounts of hype that is common practice of late, and instead held its cards firmly against its chest. Following that, when I downloaded the demo prior to release, the lack of huge expectation left me pleasantly surprised and I pre-ordered the game soon afterward.

Unfortunately, the single player campaign featured in the finished title does not build up to the great heights that the demo alluded to. I would say that, overall, the quality of game-play is mostly "alright" with a few patches that are sub-standard.

E.g. Whilst some of the heavier weapons are quite fun to use, drivable vehicles are not. I also found that whilst there are parts of the campaign that are bordering on "cool", the excitement level never really peaks.

- Issues -
Whilst the idea of the terrain deformation is quite original, the challenges that require it never get more mentally taxing than the initial tutorials, and since the key areas to address are always clearly labeled in the player's HUD, there is absolutely no feeling of mystery or suspense whilst working through them. It's like solving a sudoku puzzle with the answer sheet in front of you. Where's the fun in that?

Another issue is the enemies' intelligence (or lack there of). The developer has not been able to create even moderately adaptive enemies to play against, and so has compensated by putting more of them into each level. The result is that whilst some areas are an effort to complete, it's because the player has had to work their way through them with a certain degree of diligence, and not because they had to figure out any kind of strategy in order to complete them.

The third issue I have is the placement of the camera. It's a third-person shooter, but it may as well be a first-person shooter as the camera is locked behind the player's head and uses the azimuth and zenith of the aiming reticule to change its orientation. The player also strafes from left to right as it would in any FPS. Whilst all this is important for tracking objects whilst aiming at them, ONLY enabling players to move in this way actually limits the player's ability to navigate obstacles or utilize cover. There are no (now-standard) cover tactics in this game either, which begs the question of why is it presented in a third-person view to begin with?

The graphics and sound are of acceptable quality, in that they are good enough to be considered next-gen whilst looking and sounding a lot like a number of other titles that have come out lately. Don't be surprised of you get this game's protagonist confused with the hero from "More Than Human".

Aside from all this, there are numerous influences in game design from "Halo" and "Unreal Tournament". While this won't be a surprise to those people who are familiar with Unreal Engine based technology, I still find this passing resemblance unacceptable given the existence of other titles that use this technology and yet have their own unique look and feel. To that end, it's not really the fault of the engine that makes this game play the way it does, it's the fault of the developers.

The multi-player mode in this game should be a lot more interesting given its terrain deformation capabilities, yet there are few players out there currently making use of them (short of knocking up emergency barricades), presumably because there isn't much incentive from the map design to do so. With that in mind, the experience is very similar to playing UT3 with the action-cam mod enabled. Well guess what? I already have UT3 with the action-cam mod installed.

Overall, I feel that this is an another average shooter that's USP it not quite enough to carry it above the levels of mediocrity.

This game is certainly worth checking it out as a rental, but some prudence should be employed before purchasing it.